Debut Performances
by TheRedButlerFan
Summary: Nezumi reflects on the differences between his and Eve's first performances. I don't know what this is. Enjoy!


**Ahhhhhhhhhhhhsomuchfuckinginspirationohmygod**

**So, this happened today in science XD **

**Enjoy~!**

**TheRedButlerFan**

* * *

The day Eve made her debut was the day my manager and I realized that I wasn't cut out for acting as a male in performances.

It was a good four months since the night I'd met Shion, and I'd found my little hole underground, just filled with books. You can't comprehend how elated I was, at the age of nearly thirteen, to find so much poetry and books from the last decade. The classics, the best of the best. I still don't know where they all came from or how they all were collected in that musty underground room.

Needless to say, when I had come across Shakespeare I was simply ecstatic. I didn't just love the fact that I now owned _Shakespeare,_ some of the greatest tragicomedies of all time and the most banned books in possibly the world, but I loved the old-world style of writing the books possessed. The yellowed paper had a nice effect to it all.

Apart from my newfound love for Shakespeare, I needed a job. In West District, no one really wants to hire a thirteen-year-old VC, even if I technically wasn't a VC anymore, but you get my point. No one wants to hire a kid.

But by the time I was thirteen, I was nearly as mature as I am now. I could memorize poetry quicker than any No. 6 elite could memorize facts and data. I could kill someone without batting an eye, and I wasn't afraid to wander the dangerous world of West District.

I wouldn't call the theater hiring me a miracle. Not even close. They needed an extra stagehand, and I was available.

If I told any single one of Eve's fans that Eve started as a stagehand, jaws would drop. I think it's hilarious.

I liked the job well enough, and the little I was paid was enough to provide for a meal every other day, which was more of a miracle than the job itself. Since I was young, I suppose, I was only given meaningless tasks; fetching a lead role actor's costumes from the back of the theater, setting up the meager attempts at a scene set with other stagehands.

Every once in a while, an actor whose name I never caught would ask for 'the pretty stagehand boy' to attend to him specifically. At the time, this particular actor was the hit of the theater, the rage powering the fans and the source of the money rolling in, so of course, the manager pleased him as much as possible.

That actor hated practicing with people who didn't understand the meaning of the words like he did. Somehow, he decided that I had a similar train of thought, and frequently demanded I help him rehearse. In this way, I became extremely well-versed in many different plays, including "Hamlet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". I have memorized too many to count nowadays.

The night of a big performance, a shooting happened, and a few actors and actresses were killed, and the manager was in a panic. He chose random people to play the missing roles. I don't count the first few weeks of performing as Eve's debut performances. They were _Nezumi's_ first attempts, my first, hilariously failed attempts.

I stuttered on stage, and I forgot lines. I was clumsy as Shion, and I was a disgrace among the other actors. They all rolled their eyes when the manager would cast me for some trifle reason that he needed a boy. Eventually, the manager took my- whatever you call it, attractiveness?- Well, he took my appearance in for the account during a casting, and I was thrown on stage in a dress, my slightly longer hair free of it's ponytail, and was told to just do what actors did best- act.

That was the day Eve performed for the first time. Customers were thrilled by this young girl's amazing skills, her expressions, the way she carried herself. Eve was an immediate hit. The manager didn't know what to make of it.

My, or rather, Eve's popularity grew quickly, and tickets sold more than before. I guess they decided to keep me.

To this day, I still don't understand why I was suddenly a better actor posing as "Eve". I'm sure that if I ever wanted to debut as myself, I'd be extraordinarily better than three years ago.

But I want "Eve" to remain on stage, and "Nezumi" to stay with Shion. I don't want my job and my life outside it to merge, not even to blur on the edges a bit. Nezumi himself will never, ever debut. Eve will have her fame, and she can keep it to herself.

I still find that, when Shion offhandedly asks, "Where does Eve begin, and Nezumi end?" I don't have a particular answer other than "Does it matter? Eve is Eve, and Nezumi is Nezumi, simple as that."

I glance in the mirror, the hair extensions catching in the flowery headdress, and I mutter in annoyance as I fix the long, grey strands.

"Five minutes till your entrance, Eve," a stagehand calls. I nod curtly, carefully criticizing my job on Eve's makeup before fixing the tie on the right sleeve of the dress.

As I skim over the crude script one last time, even though I don't need it, I make my way towards the back entrance to the stage, where if I went inside, the audience would not see me until I made myself obvious. Leaving the packet on a chair outside the door, I slip silently onstage.

A stagehand nods quickly at me, and Eve raises her head as if she's just noticing the crowd in the seats, the makeshift spotlight shining on her as she begins to speak.

As Eve's words, memorized and clear, ring out in the musky room, I remember the first performance of the pretty stagehand with no experience.

**I still don't know what this even is. My friend liked it, so I guess I'll post it. **

**R&R! ^-^**


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